


heart fairy

by imaginarybarista



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, cupid! au, cupid!harry, harry carries hearts in a pail instead of a bow and arrow, harry's mom is venus/aphrodite/beyonce, love happens, mortal!louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarybarista/pseuds/imaginarybarista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Styles is Cupid. He accidentally falls in love and uses holiday themed drinks to woo Louis.</p><p>(heart fairy)(it might just be love)</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart fairy

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the "stories that should exist" page from zarah5: #au idea #harry styles is cupid #but since the traditional bow and arrow seem like a rather violent approach #he carries a bucket filled with Hearts #that he gently sprinkles on people’s heads #that’s it #that’s the au idea #i never said it was a clever idea (zarah5)  
> \+ more in the bottom from infinitelymint
> 
> {I've got a tumblr at imaginarybarista}

The date is February 14th. As anyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows, it’s Valentine’s Day. Some people look forward to it. Some dread it. Some really just don’t care and don’t see it as an especially unique winter day.

Harry lives for the people who know it’s coming a week away. He lives for the people who set up plans to make their someone feel special. He lives for the people who forget and then create the best spontaneous plans on the fly. 

Harry lives for love. The story goes-- depending on who you ask-- that a god exists, representing love, lust, passion, desire, attraction, and affection. Sometimes people say his name is Cupid. Personally, Harry prefers Eros. When people hear Cupid, they think of fat babies with a bow. 

And Wikipedia, the surest source of all, calls Eros a “slender winged youth.” So Eros is sort of who Harry is.

Except it’s 2013. Venus no longer has temples and shrines of people who praise her beauty. Mars no longer is a feared lord of war. Harry’s parents have both taken on new personas in life. He thinks it’s funny, that his parents are love and war. 

He likes to think love conquers all, because he still talks to his mum but not so much his dad. His dad is somewhere in... South America? Harry has no idea. But Harry’s mum is currently busy being Beyonce. Being a goddess has it’s perks, and choosing a mortal form is one of them. 

Meanwhile, he’s busy being Harry. He is especially busy today, this basically being what Santa would consider Christmas. He long ago abandoned the bow and arrow he carried, and instead has been floating around with his pail. 

The bow and arrow also pop up a lot in those stupid art pieces that people stick on museum walls where he’s painted as a fat baby. You don’t see much art of a tall, slender young man with a little silver bucket. Then again, he’s a lot more careful at being seen nowadays. He was quite mischievous as a little boy, always being scolded by his mum. But after several near-misses with his arrows and almost being poked with one himself, he’s gotten a lot more sensible. So he keeps himself invisible and carries a bucket, like ones farmers used to use to collect milk. 

His silver bucket is filled with tiny hearts. They’re red and white, pink and speckled, shiny, shimmery, glowy, iridescent, magenta... Some are as small as a little freckle on his arm. Some are about the same size of his fingernails. A couple are the size of cookies.

When Harry is feeling particularly kind or bubbly, he dashes around the current city he’s visiting with his pail. He vaults over people and buildings, and sometimes for fun he’ll try to cross rivers with his wings alone, which aren’t broad like a bird’s but white and downy and appear at the mere thought of them.

He takes opportunities to walk along a busy sidewalk, an old pro at dodging all the people who can’t see him. He flings handfuls of hearts out. Sometimes he picks old people. Sometimes he dusts hearts on the heads of little kids, who will have stories to tell for generations about how they fell in love with their somebody when they were still a little one. 

Harry also makes a point to try to visit all the sad people he sees with hearts. He figures the saddest people sometimes need love the most, so who minds if he helps them out a little bit? When he spots a woman crying as she leaves an office, he lets his body fill up with bubbles. He can feel them in his feet and fingers. When he looks around, he’ll spot somebody... the fizzing under his skin intensifies, and he knows. 

He shoots up to position himself just right... The woman pulls a kleenex out of her pocket and dabs at her eyes as she tries to move quickly down the sidewalk. The man a few meters away is bent down, tying his four-year old’s shoe. 

Harry waits, then flicks his hand out. A swirl of red hearts float down and sprinkle themselves over the woman, and a slight breeze carries a few more that magically come down on the man. 

The man stands up from his crouch, still bent over to check his son’s coat. “Are you zipped?” 

As he stands up, the woman doesn’t see him through her tears and distraction. Harry watches as she walks by and the man’s gaze follows. “Are you alright?” The little boy calls. The woman stops and turns around, sniffling. 

“Me?” 

“I’m sorry, Miss-” The father seems a little embarrassed but smiles. 

“It’s alright, he’s sweet,” The woman still offers a smile back even though her voice is wobbly. “I’m fine, actually,” she says. “Thanks.” She moves as if she is going to turn around, then--

“Wait!” The man calls out. 

Harry smiles. Mission accomplished. 

\-----

Harry’s spent the better part of thousands of years giving love away. He’s helped to create some of the strongest bonds out there, and has given happiness and joy and want and need and comfort and love. 

Back in the day, he used to be pretty desirable himself. People were actually scared of him. He lived in a palace above a gorgeous meadow, and it was filled with luxuries and riches. 

But Harry got lonely. He’d been all alone. People whispered to each other that a monster lived in his home, that he was dangerous because he was irresistible and both gods and mortals alike were weak to his power. 

To some extent, this was true. Harry lived alone, but it was because gods and mortals were weak to his power. Once touched by his hearts, or his arrows back when he thought he had the skill, there was nothing to do. Love was stronger than any god, and so nobody dared get close to him for fear that they’d lose themselves to him. 

So Harry left his home. He spends his time roaming the world. He watched the rise and fall of the sun and empires alike, saw the spread of European people and traditions, the British takeover, the world wars, the growth of nations and technology. 

Now, people seem to have forgotten a little about him. His toddler likeness is depicted in museums, and people throw his name around every now and then in a few books and classes, but he’s been hidden from humanity for millennia. 

This Valentine’s, he aimlessly wanders London. It’s different yet the same every time he sees it. It’s bustling, but little shops are small and quiet inside. Then you have the massive stores, the tiny apartments, the young and the old, the music and the laughter. The rain. The transit system. National landmarks. But also things that he sees in all cities. 

He’s just set the course of love for two strangers and is feeling pretty spectacular. He can tell it’ll end well, and he’s happy to have brightened at least three people’s day. He lets himself flutter his wings until he’s lifted himself to the top of a building. From there, he soars from rooftop to rooftop. 

He lets himself come down when dusk is settling in. Anybody normal-- as normal as a flying person would be-- would be feeling the chill in the air from being at a high elevation and swooping around against the wind, but Harry’s a god. He can handle it.

He doesn’t know where he is when he comes down, but it’s still a decent scene. A few people walking around, but it doesn’t have that same vibe as the week before Christmas. Instead, people seem to be characteristically walking in couples. Harry spies people kissing under streetlamps, walking hand-in-hand, dining at a particularly fancy and busy candle-lit restaurant. 

Harry ends up at the edge of a small park. Its trees are lit with little twinkly lights, and Harry heads into it. The drizzle that had started is more of a freezing rain, and it’d be ugly on any other night. Now, it catches the light of the moon and the twinklies as it comes down and shines silver as it slants towards the ground. 

He’s minding his own business, smiling inwardly when he spots a couple on a bench kissing. The man’s got his hand cradling his girlfriend or wife’s face, and she’s looking up at him before they’re smiling at each other, positively beaming. He spies the pair of gloves hastily taken off and thrown on the ground and clues into what has just happened, the woman’s hands bare in the cold but a ring now looped around one finger.

He can’t help it as he walks by a fountain, distracted by the newly engaged couple: one foot in front of the other until all of a sudden, like time has sped up, he’s no longer upright and is instead pinwheeling as his foot slips on ice, pitching him off balance. It all happens so fast-- people say these things happen in slow-motion and they’re powerless to stop it, and that’s bullshit. In Harry’s case, it’s always seemed like accidents happen to him in the blink of an eye and he is only vaguely aware of what happened.

In the nanosecond between his foot slipping and his ass and tailbone meeting the cobblestone hard, Harry feels himself being steadied. His legs are out in front of him, so he’s falling back like a girl being dipped in a dance. But he’s not falling? He has a second to wonder why he isn’t hurting right now, and opens his eyes from when they were squeezed shut. 

An angel, is the first thought that circles Harry’s mind. Because it can’t be a mere mortal, this creature in front of him looks divine. He’s got a thick grey coat and soft knit beanie on his head, but his face is peeking out and in the dim light Harry sees the quick flash of smile and the way dark blue eyes catch the twinkly lights’ reflection in the fountain water.

Then Harry comes to two realizations very quickly: one, his pail upended when his arms wheeled in the air to try and flail to catch himself; and two, he’s been caught. Somebody saw him. He couldn’t have been rescued from cracking his head on the cobblestone path if somebody couldn’t see him slip on the ice.

“Woah,” the angel says. “Watch yourself.”

“Uh huh,” Harry, a god, mumbles with intelligence. He sounds quite bright... more like drugged, as he stares up at the man who still supports him.

“Let’s get you up?” The man’s hand on Harry’s back is moving now, tipping Harry upright. When Harry’s on his feet again, he has to look down a little to meet his savior’s eyes. 

“Thanks for saving me,” he beams at the man, feeling the buzzing in his fingers again. It’s spreading though, he’s feeling a warmth in his stomach up to his chest until he feels like his face must be radiating light because... because he’s managed to sprinkle hearts all over the place, and some must’ve gotten on him. He feels like this whenever he reaches a hand in the bucket to grab hearts, but this is that feeling magnified. He must’ve tipped over the whole bucket. 

A winter wind breezes through the park then, and over the noise of the fountain’s burbling, he can hear the pattering noise of the frozen rain. The wind blows by them, and Harry watches as a heart dances through the air from it’s resting place on the man’s shoulder.

The scene is absolutely magical. It’s dark outside, the silvery rain coming down, twinkly lights all around, reflecting in the fountain which is bubbling along, not yet frozen. He’s still holding the gaze of the man in front of him, who is looking back at him as if mesmerized, with big blue eyes and that silly hat. The shadows catch on cheekbones, and everything in the night is beautiful. 

Harry’s tempted to be cheeky, kiss the hand of the man and thank him once again for the save. But he’s still tingly from the hearts and the adrenaline of slipping and instead, breathes out: “And you can see me?”

A laugh covers the noise of water for a second and Harry is fascinated at lines that crinkle up at the corner of the man’s eyes. “Course, man, why wouldn’t I be able to?” Harry thinks it takes a special person to laugh at the question instead of backing away slowly from somebody who sounds a bit nuts.

“Oh. Um. I’m Harry.” He sticks a hand out, and the man looks at it then shakes it and smiles.

“Louis,” the angel says. 

“Happy Valentine’s!” Harry tells him. His eyes are huge and doe-like, his hair is a curly mess, and he realizes he’s only wearing a white t-shirt and jeans because he doesn’t feel the winter. He steps around the beautiful Louis and runs down the path, until he can propel himself into the inky sky. 

\-----

The next morning, Harry’s in New York to see his mum. His mind’s been stuck on Louis all night, and he needs explanations. He’s never felt like this. He feels like his hands are magnetic, North and looking for their South. He feels like his body is a planet, searching out somebody to orbit. He’s a plant missing it’s sun. He’s a fish on a dry dock, desperately needing. Conversation or a kiss or a laugh from Louis, and he’ll be soothed. He tells himself that this can’t be love, because... well, he can’t be in love with a man who he exchanged eleven words with, can he? 

His mum is surprised to see him but pats his face and kisses his cheeks and asks how he’s been. Harry relays stories of magic he’s spread, and then tells her about his encounter last night. He tries to be discreet about how he feels, and her eyes widen. 

“Darling, you’re responsible for some of the strongest love in the world,” she tells him. “But I think this must be the first time you’re feeling it, the real deal, the big kahuna.”

Harry just shoots her his best puzzled expression. 

“Your hearts, which were a sweet touch when you didn’t want to seem so gung-ho and violent with arrows and the like, work exactly how you’d expect: you sprinkle them on somebody’s head and that’s what’s affected. Their minds open up to the power of love, and somebody who’s just experienced the same will connect to them... You know that, love.”

Harry bites his lip. “Well. Not really? I sort of just thought it was... me. Like, I sprinkled two people and it was me wishing they’d be together or make each other happy, then that’s how it would be.”

Harry’s mum ruffles his hair and laughs a little. “Aw, honey, not quite. Kinda, but not quite.”

Harry groans. Great. Now he’s ‘open to love’ and his own “magic” won’t actually undo his actions on himself.

\------

Harry doesn’t purposely seek Louis out, but it happens anyway: they spot each other that night once Harry returns to London. Harry’s ducked into an ice cream bar turned warm beverages shop and it’s got a massive chalk board behind the counter. He’s contemplating making himself visible. He’s not on Official Business and he’s quite eager to try the “Love Mug” advertised in pink chalk. 

He sees Louis while he’s waiting in line. He’s hunched over a laptop, finger dancing over the touchpad. Light’s reflected off his glasses, and he looks up as if he can feel Harry’s stare. He smiles out of reflex, seeing a familiar face, but looks down quickly. Probably shy, doesn’t want to talk to the strange bloke he met the previous night in the park.

Harry can’t help but notice how... alone Louis seems. He seems sad, with just his laptop. His coat is draped on the back of his chair, but the chair opposite him is empty. Louis’s alone and now that Harry thinks about it, was alone yesterday too-- and yesterday was Valentine’s Day, so that is Entirely Unacceptable. 

Harry doesn’t know him, but something is telling him that Louis deserves all the love somebody has to offer and more, and Harry’s got good instincts. He orders two mugs and pays seven pounds for them (ridiculously overpriced, thank goodness he can pull money from thin air) and makes his way to Louis.

“Mind if I sit here? Seems to be the only free seat left.” Louis’s brows knit in confusion, looking around the particularly uncrowded cafe. Miraculously, all the free chairs seem to have disappeared. Hmm. Odd.

“Yeah, go ahead mate. I’m just about heading out anyways.” Louis motions at his empty coffee cup and shuts his laptop lid as if to pack it up and get ready to leave.

“No, stay,” Harry cuts in. Louis pauses from where he’s half out of his chair. “I got you a coffee?” 

A little smile grows on Louis’s face. “You got me a coffee?” 

“Um... it might be coffee? There is whipped cream and pink sprinkles,” Harry offers his best smile. 

Louis sits back down. “Alright, I’ll take the free whipped cream beverage. Just to take it off your hands, you know. It’ll be a huge favor, you’re gonna owe me.” Louis smirks at Harry as he blows on the mug Harry’s put in front of him. 

Harry feels the fuzzy sensation again when Louis is looking at him like that, the signs of loneliness seemingly having disappeared. 

\-----

Harry sort of keeps dibs on Louis after that night. Their conversation had been light in the cafe, building on making fun of the ridiculous Love Mug (a reddish hot chocolate that actually tasted a little spicy, but sweetened with the cream and pink crystal sugar on top) and before they had parted ways, Harry has plans to meet Louis at the cafe again the next night.

Harry lets himself walk in the opposite direction from leaving the pub for fifteen seconds before turning around to keep an eye on him as he heads to his flat. He guessed Louis didn’t want to pay for a cab, and Louis doesn’t actually live far enough away from the cafe that he’d need to get on the underground. 

He knows he can’t cloak himself-- Louis sees right through that-- but risks hiding himself to fly up to the fire escape of the building next to Louis’s. Now, if anybody looks, they won’t see him perched three stories above the ground. Unless the person looking is Louis. 

His curtains are open. Harry watches him get in, stomp his boots, and shake them off. He leaves his coat on as he goes presumably to the kitchen, he disappears from the view Harry gets. He passes by the window two more times, once with a mug, and a second time without his coat on as he must be heading to bed or watching tv. The note of sadness Harry first noticed seems to be back.

\-----

At the cafe the next night, Louis tells Harry about his family. He doesn’t seem to be holding back, like strangers are apt to do. First dates are always a little uncomfortable, Harry thinks. There’s this difficult task to seem interesting, but not overshare. And to try and get to know the other person without being invasive. But the conversation flows smoothly and easily, and Harry finds himself sharing stories about growing up in Milan. (Well, it might’ve been a while, but...)

Meanwhile, the tingling he gets in his fingers and toes has turned into a full, aching feeling in his bones. He’s missing something. His fingers curl every now and then, as if searching out counterparts. 

Harry knows he can make anybody want him, but to use that power just to make himself feel better is cheap and dirty. 

A little part of him, deep down, whispers that maybe the hearts that spilled when he slipped have affected him more than he knows.

\-----

After a month of feeling like a stalker, creepily hanging out in the same spots as Louis, he comes to the realization that maybe it wouldn’t be selfish. If Louis needs him just as much, it’s okay. And every cafe conversation they’ve shared, everything Harry has learned about Louis, tells him that Louis needs someone to love him. And maybe Harry’s ready to accept that somebody can love him too.

He sits by Louis in the cafe one night, bright green concoctions in front of them for St. Paddy’s. Harry tries to bring up the night they met. “What did you first think when you met me?” He asks, genuinely curious.

“I wanted to ask why you were half naked in the middle of winter, and why you had a bucket of hearts with you. That night, I inwardly referred to you as the Valentine’s Day guy slash Heart Fairy when I laughed myself to sleep at the images in my head of you slipping on ice.”

Harry frowns at him. “I wasn’t cold. And also, Lewis, maybe nobody told you, but it’s rude to laugh at other people’s faults in public.” 

“Lewis is not an appropriate name for me, Hamish.”

“Hamish!” Harry is faking outrage.

“I’ll settle for Harold.”

“Then I’ll settle for Lou,” Harry says. Louis gives him a bright smile. His lips are a little green from the drink.

There’s a moment of quiet where they each take a sip of their drinks. “Also, I thought you looked like a deer. Big eyes, long legs, and you ran away so fast. Seriously. You’re Bambi.”

Harry rolls his eyes but is secretly pleased. He thinks maybe it’s time. It’s way too soon, a month isn’t long enough to get to know somebody enough to trust them... but... he of all people, of all gods, knows better. Maybe it’s the right time. He needs to know though if Louis could fall in love with him, without Harry’s manipulation. “Can I tell you a story?” Harry asks. Louis nods. “In Roman mythology, a god named Cupid exists.”

Louis’s face is priceless, he has no idea why the fuck Harry would be bringing this up. “He’s a baby who shoots people and makes them fall in love.” 

“Yeah,” Harry nods in confirmation. “His Greek equivalent is Eros, a young man who has the power to control affection and attraction in people and gods alike.” 

Louis looks at him, waiting for him to continue.

“Some people think that Cupid is the son of Venus and Mars, or in Greek speak, Aphrodite and Ares.”

“Beauty and fertility, and...?”

“War.” Harry answers. “There was also a myth about a girl who rivaled Aphrodite's beauty, and the saying goes that in jealousy, Eros was meant to bewitch the girl to be attracted to a terrible, horrible, worthless man. Instead he accidentally bewitched himself to be in love with her, and they lived in a palace until she broke his trust. She was told that he was a monster, because nobody could resist him. But she was curious and in the end, he abandoned her after the betrayal.”

Louis nods. “Psyche.” 

“Yup.” Harry pauses. He doesn’t know yet how to tell the rest of the story. It’s a bit delicate. “Can we take a walk?”

Louis smiles. “God, yes, this drink is nasty.” The green drinks are left behind as the two leave the cafe. The spring air is still chilly but the sky remains clear. A group of girls pass them, giggling and wearing green shirts with various dirty things written on them. 

They walk in no particular direction for a minute before Harry breaks their silence. “So... I kind of know those myths well, because... they’re about me? Like, they’re only myths-- there are a lot of details and wrong facts and stuff but...”

Louis stops walking. “What?” Surely he heard wrong.

At least Louis hasn’t fled, Harry thinks. “Uh. I’m Cupid? Okay, I can show you,” he says. He grabs for Louis’s wrist, and Louis lets himself be tugged along until they reach the park where they first saw each other. 

It’s not busy at all. In the privacy, Harry untucks his wings. 

Louis’s eyes are saucers and he steps closer to Harry to gently touch them with one finger.

Harry smiles nervously. “And I don’t shoot people, to clarify. I have hearts.” 

Louis lets out a small disbelieving laugh. “What?”

Harry produces the pail. Louis peers inside. “What do they do? Wait, are those the same ones as when we were here before?” 

“If one touches your head, your mind-- and heart-- open up to love.”

Louis already has a hand in the bucket. He holds a few hearts in his hand before deliberately sprinkling them on his head. “Am I gonna be open to love now?”

Harry’s mouth drops open. “You can’t just do that, Louis! You’re messing with stuff you don’t even know!” 

But Louis’s rolling his eyes. “Idiot. I’ve already been open to love, you know. For the past month I’ve been, like, putting myself out there. Zayn always says I’ve needed to actually try to have a relationship because I’m an adult--” his voice sneers a little, and Harry can’t help the little smile because Louis is so youthful sometimes-- “and so when you asked me out, I went with it. And now when you’re not around I’m fuckin’ lonely.” The humor in Louis’s voice has vanished. 

This is the Louis Harry loves, the Louis who goes from zero to sixty and is fearless and so goddamn shy all the time.

“So, like, are you saying...?”

“I’m saying I’m putting myself out there and I’m ready to throw hearts at your face if you don’t say something in the next two seconds, Harold.”

So Harry says something in the next two seconds, and then he’s wrapping Louis up tight, the bucket of hearts dropped between them, and their lips are sliding against each other, and it’s just like Valentine’s Day except Harry’s not falling on ice, he’s fallen for Louis. 

“Any chance we could fly later, Heart Fairy?” 

This might just be love.

**Author's Note:**

> and whenever the hearts he’s throwing hit two people at the same time, then it’s fate and those two are destined to be, only the thing is that Harry is a bit of a bambi on ice, and one day he sees the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen, all blue eyes and soft hair under a beanie, and the thing is, this boy looks so sad, so harry wants to see if maybe he can help him find love, only he trips over his own feet just as he is throwing the hearts, and the hearts end up hitting both him and the boy, who he will soon learn is called louis, and louis catches him before he hits the ground face first all ‘you ok mate?’, and harry is shocked because usually people cant see him, but he doesn’t question it because the beautiful boy still has his hands on him, and that feels amazing, and harry may just be a little bit in love, but that’s okay because so is louis, and the rest as they say is history (infinitelymint)


End file.
